Model Guy (28 page)

 
"I know you, don't
I?"

 
"No."

 
"I do."

 
"Perhaps from the
website, 2cool -"

 
"2btrue, of course."
She takes a drag and looks at me again. "So you didn't do it with my mother,
then?" "No, I...we didn't in the end."

 
"Oh, I see. Was that
your boyfriend you were ringing just now?"

 
"No, it was my girlfriend.
I just -"

 
"Managed to fight
my mother off. Gosh, you're now a member of a very exclusive club. I mean the ones
that have managed to get away from her."

 
She offers me her joint.
I'm about to decline but instead I reach and take it from her. I have a drag and
hold it before handing the joint back.

 
"How do you know
my parents?" she asks.

 
"I, er, I'm here
with a girl called Nora. Know her? American girl, she's journalist. Writes for The
Post."

 
Anastasia shakes her head
without thinking.

 
"I haven't been inside
much. Can't stomach it."

 
"Sure. I can sort
of understand that."

 
She takes another drag.

 
"It's quite fun,
your website - I look at it quite a bit. Quite funky. Shame, though, apparently
it's all going tits up, isn't it? Still that's Piers for you."

 
"You know him?"
I feel a surge of adrenalin through my tired, aching body.

 
"Piers? Yes."

 
"How?"

 
I curse myself for appearing
too blunt, too interested. This is what I came to this stupid, awful party for but
I get the feeling I'm going to have to reel this one in carefully. I can tell, though,
from way she's looking me up and down that there is something going on here. I give
her the same frowny, 'come to bed' look as in the picture that ended up in the first
Post article. I probably look like a tit but I might as well try and charm this
sultry, cynical girl.

 
"I've known him for
yonks," she says. She flicks ash off the remainder of her joint and take another
drag at it. "He's my dealer for one thing."

 
"Really? Piers?"

 
"Oh, Piers can get
you anything. Real Arthur Daley. He was selling this shit through your site."

 
"What drugs? On 2cool?"

 
"Derr! Didn't you
notice? Go to 'Extra curricula', click on 'What's in the cupboard?' You must know
what that means? No?" She tuts. "So innocent. Then you just choose: 'Charlie
Says', 'Pot Noodle'. ‘Good enough to Eat’? 'Grass cutters.'" She laughs. "I
can believe you've never looked?"

 
"I can't keep track
on all the things that go on the site."

 
"So what's happening
to it? They say it's falling apart."

 
"A few financial
difficulties. That's why I'm looking for Piers."

 
She glances around for
a moment.

 
"Well, he doesn't
seem to be here," she says in an ultra patronising tone.

 
"Thanks for looking."

 
I flash her big smile
to keep her onside.

 
"Don't mention it."

 
"It would be really
helpful if you could let me know if you hear anything. Seriously."

 
She thinks about it, finishes
her joint and throws it into the bushes.

 
"'Kay." she
says in a strangled, post drag voice. "I think my Dad would quite like to speak
to him too. Piers is the one who persuaded him to invest in 2cool."

 
"Well, if we find
him, we'll call your Dad, I promise. It's the least I can do."

 
"For fucking his
wife."

 
"I told you -"

 
"Oh, I'm kidding."

 
I put my hands in my pockets
and walk around thoughtfully.

 
"So what else has
Piers invested in?"

 
"Oh, let me see."
She looks up the few stars we can see above the London light pollution. "A
girl band. Oh, haven't we all? These were two Croatian models. Piers chatted up
them in a bar. They couldn't speak English let alone sing but Piers paid a couple
of backing vocalists to take care of that little technicality, had them photographed
and even got them a recording 'contract'." She gives lazy, stoned, air quotes.
"Then they went home to some remote village. He thought it would be funny if
he got them into the charts. He loved the idea that she would be a star in this
country and not even know it. It nearly worked I think."

 
"Very virtual."

 
"Then there were
Yukisaki's or whatever they're called."

 
"What?"

 
"These little creatures.
According to Piers they were a cross between Tamogochi and Hello Kitty. You know,
cute little things with computers in them. He thought they'd be huge, bought thousands
and thousands of them from a factory in China - you know the kind where they employ
five year olds for eighteen hours a day making sports gear, the kind my father invests
in - and he planned to sell them on street corners, cutting out the middle man,
a kind of, what do they call it?, guerilla marketing thing. Make it an underground
operation. Really hip accessory. Kind of thing that all your mates have but too
cool to be sold in any high street shop."

 
"Don't remember them?
What happened?"

 
"Well, apparently
the head came off really easily and there was this sharp spike which also gave off
an electric shock."

 
"Nice."

 
"Not really. So obviously
he couldn't flog many in this country. Last thing we heard the Triads were using
them - you know, to poke their enemies' eyes out with, oh, and I think some African
dictator had bought a job lot."

 
"So, not all bad
news then."

 
She laughs.

 
"Depends how you
look at it. Piers always looks on the bright side."

 
"Yeah, he does, doesn't
he?" There is a pause as we both look up at the stars. Then I say: "I
would like to find him you know."

 
"I'm sure you would."

 
"I won't land you
in it."

 
"I don't care if
you do. He won't hold it against me - I'm one of his best customers." She mimes
a rolling action with the tips of her fingers.

 
"Can I ring you about
it?"

 
"I'll ring you."

Then I go to find Nora. She is talking to a couple of people
and seems ready to leave when I suggest it. We find a taxi in Kensington High Street
and although Notting Hill isn't strictly on the way we decide to drop her off first.
Once inside I tell her what Anastasia Huntsman has told me.

 
"That's great,"
she says.

 
"It's not great,
it's terrible. Piers is a total spiv."

 
"Well, at least we
know something more about his business background. This girl, Huntsman's daughter,
is bound to hear from him at some point. Give her a call tomorrow and have another
chat."

 
"She wouldn't give
me her number but she's got mine and said she'd call me when she heard from him,"
I say, wondering what it must be like to be as angry and bored all the time as Anastasia.

 
"OK, well if you
haven't heard by the end of the day tell me and I'll get her number for you."

 
We sit in silence for
a moment and then I say: "I bumped into my Dad and he basically just said get
out of it."

 
"The advertising
man, was he there?"

 
"How did you know
my Dad was in advertising?"

 
"You mentioned it
the other night," she says quickly. "Anyway, he says get out, does he?
Well, he's probably right but you might as well just follow up this Piers thing
and then leave it. One more day can't do any harm can it?"

 
I think about it. The
harm it could do is to get me sent to prison or beaten to a pulp but something,
some stupid, headstrong, irresponsible part of me agrees with her. Most of all,
I just want to prove to my Dad that I can do what he did. Even if it doesn't work,
I want to show I didn't walk away without trying.

 
We set off up Kensington
Church Street past the antique shops full of the kind of furniture we've just been
walking past and sitting on and getting sexually assaulted amongst. After a few
minutes I ask: "Did you see your friend Anna in the end?"

 
"Anna? Er, no, I
don't think she made it."

 
"Probably because
she doesn't exist."

 
"Yes, she does,"
says Nora, half heartedly.

 
"No, she doesn't.
You just made her up. We basically just crashed that party, didn't we?"

 
"And very successfully,"
she says, turning to me and raising one eyebrow elegantly.

We reach Nora's and I get out to her see her to the door. We
do the key thing again. She rabbits on about what she's got to write tomorrow while
she searches around what tonight is only a tiny dress handbag but seems to have
a Tardis quality about it. Then she produces the key and holds it up.

 
"Knew it was in here
somewhere," she laughs breathily. She's like a little girl with her big dark
eyes and her cheeky grin. I suddenly wonder whether she has anyone to protect her,
to put his arms round her, to listen to her when she's got herself into trouble
at work - again.

 
I don't think she has.

 
This girl is trouble,
I remind myself. She's lied to me, she's already got me into various horribly embarrassing
situations, she's made the 2cool problem a thousand times worse, she seems to have
only a light grip on reality and she is either unaware of or unconcerned about what
problems she causes other people. But somehow I find myself wanting to get closer
to her, feel her skin on mine.

 
Looking up at me, she
licks her lips, almost subconsciously. We're standing inches away from each other.

 
"Night then,"
I tell her.

 
"Good night, Charlie,"
she says.

I slip into bed with Lauren. She groans slightly in her sleep
and turns and backs into me. I put my arms around her sleeping body and gently drift
off.

Although there seems very little point in going to the office
the next day, I'm there by 10am. Scarlett comes in an hour later and Zac drifts
in at lunch time.

 
"I got you a carrot,
apple and ginger to help you detox," she says. "After last night."

 
"Thanks, doll,"
I say and tell her about last night - minus the Lady H episode. I came so close
to kissing Nora last night and I still don't really know why. As I finish talking
about the party the phone rings with someone about payment again. I'm polite but
firm - they'll have to wait.

"Fuck," says Scarlett over her alfalfa sprout roll.

 
"Let me just finish
this email and I'll be right over," says Zac.

 
"In your dreams,
net nerd."

 
"What's the matter?"
I ask.

 
"Have you seen the
Standard today?"

 
"Oh, God, now what?"

 
"It's about your
friend Nora."

 
I'm at Scarlett's desk
in a moment. She points to a piece in the Londoner's Diary. It's a picture of Nora
next to one of Piers.

Post columnist Nora Bentall has become something of an expert
on style-over-substance website 2cool2btrue.com. At a party thrown by financier
Sir James Huntsman at his Kensington mansion last night she was seen on the arm
of her latest squeeze, former male model and internet guru Charlie Barrett.

 
But her connection with
2cool goes beyond Barrett, the public face of the fast disintegrating luxury goods
outfit. Her cousin Piers Gough-Pugh founded and financed the site but has since
disappeared. In addition to a full blown police investigation which now includes
the Fraud Squad, American born Bentall, 27, has been carrying out her own enquiries
into her cousin's whereabouts.

 
"Nora is very tenacious
and if anyone can find Piers it will be her. She's bound to be there before the
police", says a friend.

"Latest squeeze?" asks Scarlett.

 
"No, no. Me and Nora?
Not at all." I look at the paper again. "And they've got this wrong too.
Nora isn't Piers' cousin - how can she be?" But even as I'm saying it I'm realising
how very possible it is. That's how Piers knew her in the first place. She's done
it again. How could she? She's lied to me again. Tricked me again. Fucking betrayed
my trust. The bitch, how could she? I think about that moment on her doorstep last
night. We nearly kissed, let's be honest I wanted to kiss her. I actually felt very
close to her and all the time she was taking me for a ride. Lying to me. Again.

 
"You all right?"
It's Scarlett.

 
I look round at her. She
squeezes my hand.

 
"Yeah, just...why
didn't she say?" Somehow, even though I didn't mention her much when I was
talking about the party, I think that Scarlett can tell that I feel something for
Nora.